Saturday, April 01, 2017

I recently
received some comments to our discussion about the concept of celibacy
in Christianity and how that relates to Judaism. I would like to address those
comments written by want to take the time to address them. The small font text
is what was sent to me by Stephen James Schneider of Make Ridge, British
Columbia (in Canada). I am only posting the first half of his comments because he raised some interesting points, but the second half of what he wrote is the standard missionary drivel that we've had to deal with before, so I'm just leaving it out for now.

Good evening, Rabbi Chaim:I'm not sure if this needs to be said, but (just
in case) should anything in the comments below seem offensive or even
blasphemous, it was not my intent to be rude or inconsiderate of your feelings.
We hold different beliefs to be true, but I respect your right to believe what
you do and am hopeful that the reverse is also true on your part. I do know
that I can benefit from your knowledge of Scripture and your wisdom even though
we belong to different faiths. Hopefully, you will be able to help me answer
some questions and to further develop my understanding of Scripture. Oh, and
(just so you know) I have very thick skin, so you don't need to mince words
unless you want to.I recently found your blog
and this post while searching for information regarding Jewish marriage customs
in the 1st Century and their application with respect to the betrothal of the
Virgin Mary, Jesus' parthogenic birth, and her husband Joseph. I'm a Roman
Catholic Christian, a follower of (as you amusedly (from my perspective) put
it) the "bastard from Bethlehem", who understands that it is
impossible to fully understand Christianity without understanding the Jewish
roots of that faith, and who is in the process of figuring out the correct
interpretations of certain Catholic doctrines, ones (the interpretations) that
are in line with the Torah, Psalms, Prophets, etc. if not necessarily the
Talmud, although ideally also consistent with it. Your blog raised questions
and ideas that don't relate to Moses and his black wife (Zipporah?), but that I
am hopeful you will be able to clarify.

Despite past experiences with well-mannered
Christians turning to me to innocently ask me a few questions, I will
nonetheless assume good faith on your part and try to take you seriously. But I
must point out one thing that you wrote so far with which I strongly disagree
and you should take into consideration. You wrote, “We hold different beliefs
to be true, but I respect your right to believe what you do and am hopeful that
the reverse is also true on your part.” That sentence smacks of the thinking
man’s worst enemy: relativism. If you believe something to be true, then the
view which opposes you is false and nobody has the “right” to hold a false
position. You shouldn’t assume that just because you have granted me the
“right” to believe what I do that I should grant you the same leeway. If you
hold something false, then it’s still false.

Do I understand "Hashem" to be a way
to not write or say one of the 11 names of G*d derived from the Tetragrammaton?
I've been told that Jews do not believe it proper to write or say aloud any of
the names of G*d, but I'm not sure of the source in the Torah or Talmud
regarding this. Exodus23:13talks of
the names of other gods and not the one and only true G*d that we both serve
and love, whether you believe that or not. What does "Hashem" mean
(translated) in English? Is it similar to "Adhonai", "Lord of
All"?

The word Hashem simply means
“the Name” in Hebrew. Jews believed that God’s Tetragrammaton should be
ineffable, that is, it should not be pronounced. Instead, His four-letter name
is read as “Adonai” (which actually means “My master” in the honorific plural
form) even though it is not spelled like that. The different between His
written name and his verbalized name is alluded to in Exodus 3:15 which
mentions both God’s Name and remembrance (i.e. utterance) which are supposed to
be two different things. The prevailing custom amongst Jews is to even refrain
from referring to God as Adonai except in ritual contexts, so instead we call
Him, “Hashem”.

Sobering
statistics to be sure, which I accept (as a Catholic) to be accurate, but not
the picture that you have painted. It occurs to me that perhaps you simply have
an extremely strong (or even extraordinary) libido and have made the mistake of
believing that yours is average in nature, leading to your belief that
"mere mortals" are incapable of resisting these natural urges. I
suppose it could also be a Gentile thing; that there is something in the DNA of
the Jewish people, but that seems unlikely to me. Variation of libido seems
more likely on an individual basis rather than on an ethnic one, thus varying
from individual to individual. Your's could simply be on the high end of the
spectrum.

I
don’t remember exactly what I wrote in “Moses’ Black Wife and Celibacy” and my
web filter doesn’t even let me look at that webpage—it’s been close to four
years since I wrote that article. But if I remember correctly, I did not just
focus on the possibility of pedophilia amongst clergy who have taken oaths of
celibacy. I believed I also made the argument that they engage in other illicit
sexual activities such as visiting other women (including, nuns) and
masturbation. Even if only 2% of Roman Catholic priests are pedophiles,
that does not mean that 99% are not secretly or even openly engaging in some other
sorts of illicit sexual activity. I will grant you that as much as 1% of the
world’s male population can be characterized as asexual, perhaps they have
higher representation in the halls of the Church.

By
the way, I think it is considered ungentlemanly to speak about other people’s
libidos or sexual drives. My personal life has no bearing on the discussion.
Your implied ad hominem attack against the Jewish people for possibly
having a higher disposition for strong libidos is not only offensive, but
belays much ignorance. The Jewish people are not just a race of people who can
be identified through DNA analysis, but they are also an opt-in religion which
accepts people from any other race. Thus, there is no such thing as “Jewish
DNA” (granted, there might be certain things which are more common in
Jews, but remember Jews can come from any race).

Deuteronomy 9:4-8 makes it clear that the
ancient Israelites were not chosen by G*d to be His (first) chosen people
because of spiritual superiority over Gentiles, and I expect the same is true
regarding any physical superiority. As I understand it, G*d doesn't "play
favourites", but rather selected Israel to be a people set aside from
Gentile nations to serve as an example for what G*d commands of Gentiles as
well. We Gentiles were never under the Mosaic Covenant (Law), but it serves to
us as a guide to what G*d seeks from us spiritually. The Law is, after all, both
spiritual and physical (written) in nature; unlike Jews, Gentiles are to follow
its spiritual principles, precepts, and commands. Jews are, of course, to
follow both, and it is by the standard of the Law that they will be judged by
G*d when the time comes.

This paragraph is true.
Although, in truth, gentiles are excluded from certain commandments and it is
not recommended that they follow those commandments. Instead, gentiles are
supposed to follow the Seven Noahide Laws and not the 613 commandments of the
Torah. But, indeed the Torah could serve as precedent for the general spirit of
the law to which gentiles should strive to adhere. The gentiles will only be
judged according to the Noahide laws, nobody expects more of them—even in the
End of Days.

I firmly believe that faith can move
(metaphorical) mountains and that there are many people who have learned to
discipline their minds and bodies to the degree necessary to achieve perpetual
celibacy, including many priests, nuns, Buddhist monks, etc. One does not need
to be "damaged" (unhealthy) in some way to master one's worldly
(physical) desires and cravings; one does have to be dedicated to one's reasons
for doing so. I believe the Essenes were an example of Jews who learned (with
difficulty) how to do so. Moses, of course, was able to do so easily, not
having any temptation to give into these natural urges, but that hardly means
that others are (with greater difficulty) incapable of it. And G*d and faith
can work wonders (miracles).

This paragraph contradicts
the previous one. Previously, you granted that the Torah should serve as
precedent for the type of law that even gentiles should follow and now you are
arguing against the spirit of Torah Law that you can be “holier” than the Torah
by abstaining from sex completely. You can firmly believe whatever you want,
but that does not make it true. Whether they like to admit it or not, all
red-blooded men have certain urges which it is impossible for them to
indefinitely suppress. Period. The Torah Law requires Jewish men to procreate
by fathering at least one boy and girl. Isaiah (45:18) says that God did
not create the world for nothingness, He created the world to be populated.
Tradition understands Isaiah’s comment to obligate gentiles in procreation, as
well. There is no way out of this.

You claim that the Essenes
were able to live a pure sexless life. What do you know about the Essenes?
Anything we know about them is from Josephus who is not known for being such a
reliable source, but even he doesn’t say anything about them completely
abstaining from sex, he only writes that they were ascetic and OCD about ritual
impurity. And anyways, the Essenes were probably some fringe group on the extreme
edge of Judaism and cannot be representative of true Jewish tradition and
adherence to the Torah Law.

If I understand the Jewish
marriage process in the 1st Century at least, the Virgin Mary was betrothed to
Joseph although the marriage had not (yet?) been consummated, so I fail to see
how Jesus could be called a bastard as His mother and step-father were married
fully under Jewish law.

The term “betrothal” in this
context is somewhat of a misnomer. In Jewish Law, there are two steps in
marriage: Kiddushin and nissiun. Kiddushin is what people call
“betrothal” but is much more than simply declaring a woman as his intended
future wife. Kiddushin actually creates the marriage from a legal
standpoint. Once Kiddushin has been effected, a woman is considered a
married woman and any sexual act which commits with another man is considered
adultery and she may be liable for the death penalty. For all intents and
purposes, Kiddushin creates the marriage. From Kiddushin and onwards,
a man is Biblically prohibited from fornicating with his wife’s close
relatives, etc… The only difference is that when a man and woman have only done
Kiddushin, then they are forbidden from being intimate with each other until
such time as they execute the Nissiun. The second stage of marriage Nissiun
is what “consummates” the marriage. Nissiun is the symbolic act of a
groom taking his bride into his possession (customarily done under a wedding
canopy) and the recitation of certain blessing in the presence of ten Jewish
men. Afterwards, the couple may engage in sex. In the 1st century, Nissuin
was usually done about 6 months after Kiddushin to give the families of the
bride and groom time to prepare for the wedding. From what I understand, Skank
Mary was in a Kiddushin relationship with Joseph at the time that she
fornicated with a Roman soldier named Pandra. In doing so, Mary lost her
virginity and became pregnant. Perhaps to save face and try to finagle her way
out of a severe punishment, she claimed that she was impregnated divinely.

While the rabbinic community
does not accept this, Christians believe that Jesus' birth was parthogenic in
nature. His not having a human father means that there was no adultery on
Mary's part (as per Isaiah?), making it impossible for Him to be a bastard. Of
course, I do understand that your beliefs cannot allow you to accept a virgin
birth, but parthogenesis is an authentic medical possibility that occurs when
two naturally occuring genetic mutations that do not naturally occur together
do occur together. Even the late Christopher Hitchens, a famous Antithiest, did
reluctantly have to admit the possibility of a parthogenic birth with respect
to Jesus, and he refused to admit that G*d was anything more than a primitive myth,
so that's something significant. Parthogenesis would be (and is) easily
possible for G*d who also preserved Jeremiah's sperm in bathwater until it
could "take seed" in his daughter.

First of all, you spelled it
wrong. It’s Parthenogenesis. The Parthenogenesis claim is quite laughable. Even
my layman’s knowledge of biology understands that it is basically a glorified
form of meosis cell division, which would theoretically mean that a cell from
Mary’s body split into two and from that developed an entire human being (which
is a phenonmoen which obviously has never been observed in any mammal, let
alone in humans!) who had the exact same DNA as Mary. So then, Jesus was a
woman. Maybe that’s why Jesus is traditionally depicted as having long hair. But
I don’t get it because Jesus is actually a male name attested to in the Bible.
Maybe then again, we all know the story of Pope Joan.

Second of all, even if I
agree that he did not have a human father, maybe his father was a demon. Maybe
he was half-human, half-demon. How would you know it was God Himself? And what
did you mean when you wrote “(as per Isaiah?)” are you referring to the
prophecy of the birth of Hezekiah?

Third, I don’t understand
why you mentioned Christopher Hitchens as an authority. We both agree that he
is an idiot!

About that, as it was G*d who made this happen,
is it correct to say that this pregnancy could not have been classified as
incestuous (making it a sin for Jeremiah) and the child would not have been a
bastard despite Jeremiah not being married to his daughter (which would have
been very wrong)? After all, technically, the child's human parents were not
married, whereas Mary and Joseph actually were.

Okay, let’s clear up some misconceptions. When I speak about
a “bastard” I am actually referring to the Biblical status of a mamzer which
is not defined as a child born out of wedlock (don’t worry, the Jerusalem Post
also made the same mistake, see here). A mamzer is defined as a child of a
mamzer or the child of a union of two people who are banned from marriage with
a prohibition punishable by kares. That is, if a Jewish man has sex with
his mother, sister, mother-in-law, aunt, living wife’s sister, etc…, then the
resulting child is a bastard. This includes a man who has sex with a married
woman. Of course, when Skank Mary had sex with the Roman soldier, the resulting
child is not technically a mamzer because his father is not Jewish. I
just like to him the Bastard from Bethlehem for the fun of it.

I don’t understand your claim that contrasts the story of Ben
Sira with Jesus “the child's
human parents were not married, whereas Mary and Joseph actually were.” The
fact that Mary and Joseph were married has no bearing on the situation, if
Joseph wasn’t Jesus’ father (it was a Roman soldier or, if you want to be
silly, it was a demon, or if you want to be even sillier…).

Now we move on to the story
of Ben Sira. First of all, as you might know, that story is of dubious origins.
The son of the earliest person to have supposedly recorded the story claimed
that his father never said such a thing (if you could read Hebrew, see here).
Secondly, even if this story is true, that doesn’t mean that the resulting
child is not a mamzer. It is actually a big question amongst
contemporary scholars about whether a woman who becomes pregnant with the semen
of a man whom she cannot marry, but without a prohibited act of sexual
intercourse is the child considered a mamzer or not. The practical
ramification of this disagreement is whether the child of a married woman who
was artificially inseminated by another (Jewish) man is considered a mamzer.
In practice, the prevailing understanding is in accordance with the late Rabbi
Moshe Feinstein that such a child is not a mamzer, but the Satmer Rebbe
does disagree.

In short, I am conceding
your point that Jesus was not technically a bastard, but vehemently ruling out
the possibility of immaculate conception.

You
mentioned that Deborah the Judgess may have been the reincarnation of Moses'
wife Zipporah. Is reincarnation a part of what Jews believe happens after
death? I didn't think it was; I thought that was Buddhists and faiths related
to eastern philosophy (mysticism?). Is reincarnation the means by which Elijah
will return and (if so) will he remember his previous life or lives?
Spiritually, he will, of course. I mean physically; with his (new?) physical
brain? If I understand correctly, Elisha saw Elijah carried up into heaven in a
vision, although not necessarily the 3rd (?) heaven. Physically, if a whirlwind
is anything like a tornado, it's not hard to conclude what would have happened
to Elijah's physical body. As to where it (ie. his corpse?) was "spit
out" of such a whirlwind is anyone's guess, but a body minus its soul is
not that important, not even the body (shell) of a great Prophet like Elijah.
It's Elijah's soul that is important and that was carried into the heavens,
though which heaven I'm not sure of. Or would Elijah's spiritual journey have
ended in his being delivered to "Abraham's Bosom" in Sheol, two
concepts that I am still in the process of learning about? And is there any
teaching about Enoch being a previous life of Elijah?

Lots of good questions.
There was a dispute about the concept of reincarnation with R. Saadia Gaon
opposing such an idea, but ever since the revelation of Kabbalah, it has
basically been universally accepted amongst Jews with a few prominent skeptics.
I don’t know exactly how Elijah will return, only time will tell. It should be
any day now… We were once redeemed in the month of Nissan and we are destined
to be redeemed then again. There are different teachings about Elijah the
Prophet returning to This World in different forms and connections between him
and the story of Enoch, but I think I will hold off on speaking about such deep
ideas in a public forum.

As I have thus far been successful in finding
interpretations of doctrines that are in line with the Torah, Psalms, Prophets,
etc. but sometimes not the Talmud, it seems more and more (as I proceed) that
the Christian and Jewish faiths are not at odds fundamentally; it's simply a
matter of determining, with a circumcised heart and mind, what the correct
interpretations are for this to be true, and for Christianity (as it existed in
the 1st Century) to be a natural evolution of Judaism (as it existed in the 1st
Century) based on the Hebrew Scriptures and their Greek translation, which the
Dead Sea Scrolls have demonstrated is extremely accurate and faithful to the
Hebrew (Scriptural) source material that was translated.

It has been proven time and
again that the Written Scriptures are completely nonsensical and meaningless
unless one has a tradition in how to interpret them. For every doctrine and
philosophy you might try to draw out from the Torah, Psalms or Prophets or
other books of the Bible, I can find you other sources in the Bible which seem
to imply the exact opposite. You must use the Oral Law alongside the Written
Law in order to get the whole picture. That Oral Law is reflected in the Talmud
and other Rabbinic writings and is an indispensable part of understanding the
otherwise closed book that is the Bible.

The most significant point of disagreement is,
of course, who we respectively believe the Messiah to be and whether He (and
Elijah) have come once before, roughly 2000 years ago. Both faiths hold that
Elijah and the Messiah are coming; Christians simply believe that it is a case
of returning rather than coming for the first time.

I’m not sure if it is the
most significant point of disagreement, but it is definitely a significant
point of disagreement.

Where the disagreement comes in, as I understand
it, is with the Christian belief that the Messiah, willingly humbling Himself
to serve G*d as the Suffering Servent Isaiah foretold, decisively defeated the
single, greatest enemy of Israel and the entire world: the spiritual
consequences of sin, spiritual death, as only a Messiah could be expected to
successfully do. Due to this singular victory on the level of spiritual
reality, the forgiveness of sins (past, present, and future; universally across
time) "became" possible, thus allowing humanity to stand before G*d
justified in His sight and His love.The sacrifice of animals could never be entirely
sufficient to cancel out the sins of human beings, simply because animals are
not human beings. Those sacrifices, as I understand it, were instead a physical
foreshadowing of what G*d always had planned to make happen in order to undo
the damage (Original Sin) that Adam and Eve caused with their rebellion against
Him. One man, the first man, caused Original Sin and so it necessitated
another, the Messiah, to defeat (negate) it and thus make the salvation of Jews
and Gentiles alike possible. The question becomes whether this victory on the
part of the Messiah, whomever He may be, has already happened or is yet to be
accomplished.

This is another
major point of disagreement. We Jews do not believe that because of Adam’s sin
all of mankind is damned for eternity. We believe that any sin can ultimately
be forgiven and we do not need sacrifices to achieve that forgiveness. We can
simply return our hearts to God, refrain from the sins previously committed,
and repent our ways. Sacrifices are never brought for willful sinning, only as
an atonement to help one feel as though his repentance is accepted for committing
a sin by mistake. The main principle is repentance. X-tians believe that man
cannot rectify his sins and must use a sacrificial person or “lamb” whose death
somehow fixes those sins. I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s why X-ianity
holds. The Messiah’s role will be to show people how to repent and come closer
to God, not to die as a punishment for Adam’s original sin. There is more to
talk about this, but again I do not want to speak about deep Kabbalistic ideas
in a public forum, especially when I am not an expert in the topic.